


Under the Wire

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Assassination Attempt(s), Blood and Gore, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, rival CEOs au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 16:06:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: A dinner engagement that Jack and Rhys are attending goes terribly wrong, leaving the both of them in dire straits. Will they get out of this alive?





	Under the Wire

**Author's Note:**

> More rival CEOs and hurt/comfort! Hope you guys arent tired of this lmao. 
> 
> Comments are appreciated! <3

It’s not the first fancy dinner turned firefight Jack has been through—and knowing his dangerous lifestyle and coveted position, it won’t be the last—but he’s having a lot less fun at this one than the others. 

Only cowards utilize the element of surprise, and Jack should’ve pegged the bloated, self-proclaimed chieftain of the Cornelians for one the moment he realized the useless bastard was barely competent enough to rule over a woefully underpopulated planet from his sprawling mansion. But he’d taken up the invitation to dinner anyway as a sign of goodwill after the recent, three-way treat established between the Cornelian, Hyperion, and Atlas. 

_All right_. The attendance of his rival might’ve been the _real_ motivation that had driven Jack to attend the dinner in the first place. And Rhys ended up looking beautiful when he showed up, cutting a sharp and elegant figure against the gaudy golden decor of the mansion, dressed in all black with hints of silver, gold, and red peppered from boot to collar. 

Jack hated that he didn’t wind up seated next to Rhys, with a couple of nobody locals gussied up and taking up space between them, but that didn’t stop the alpha from shooting flirty winks and mouthing dirty things in Rhys’ direction. The omega batted him back with a sour grin, though Jack thought he caught a smile when Rhys ducked his lips into his wine glass. 

Jack felt something in his stomach the entire meal, divorced entirely from the steak of exotic meat and heavy wine the chieftain plied the grand table with. Something that had him hoping Rhys’ lips might get a little looser as the night went on. For most of dinner he continued in a state of interest and amusement, barely paying their host and his staff much mind aside from the occasional nod and noncommittal response. 

And yet—even bogged down with food and alcohol and distracting omega scent—Jack was a hard man to take unawares. 

He noticed a shifting in the chieftain’s guard, weapons that had stayed stiff and to attention all night lowering. Then, a shadow flittering in the balcony of the second floor overlooking the dining room. Then, the chieftain raising his glass in a silent, mock toast, sullen eyes glimmering with something cruel. 

Jack spotted the red dot on Rhys’ chest a moment too late. 

When the first shot fired the entire party exploded—screams, crashing plates, scattering glasses—it all went off like a grenade that blew Jack up and out of his chair just as bullets shredded its velvety cushions. The alpha sobered in an instant, grasping at his belt as he darted for cover, brain frantically grasping hold of the situation, the depths of betrayal.

And that’s how Jack ended up here, hunched behind a collapsed statue with his teeth gritted and pistol clenched in his hand. 

Jack can’t see Rhys from his position any longer, but he remembers how the omega had collapsed, body limp and lifeless as stone. Hair thrown out of its perfect style and covering his face. Blood seeping into his dark clothes. 

Jack’s fingers shake in their tight grip around his pistol. If he can’t do anything more for Rhys, then he can at least scrub the bastards that killed him off the planet. 

He has already shot and killed the chieftain, taking care of the slimy bastard as he caught him fleeing the scene of the massacre he himself set into motion. Jack had plugged him right between the shoulder blades, regretting he couldn’t see the bastard’s face as life left his eyes. But the bullets continued flying, forcing Jack behind the table he currently crouches behind, periodically firing around the edge to take out the remaining assassins. 

Anger makes his shots wild, his own instinct of self-preservation waning as he thinks of Rhys, of how quickly his life was stolen away by cretins not worthy enough to lick the blood from his boots. He manages still to strike the last of the chieftain’s guard—dressed for ceremony, not defense—but at least two black-clad assassins remain. He’s already called for the backup and medical team stationed in reserve within his shuttle, but they’ll have to comb through the guards in the rest of the mansion first, and there’s no telling how quickly they’ll arrive. 

Sweat-soaked hair fans wildly about his face as he bolts from his position behind the statue and races towards a sturdy couch flipped onto its side. He leaps in the air as the carpet beneath him explodes from the assassin’s rifle, throwing his firing arm out and shooting not towards either of the men but instead to the pendulous metal chandelier hovering above, laden heavily with artificial candles. The chain tethering it to the ceiling bursts, and just as the fixture starts to hurtle towards the ground Jack tucks his head down and rolls over his shoulder, clearing the last couple of feet behind the couch. 

A deafening _crash_ fills the room, punctuating by a couple definitive screams of pain. Jack counts his heartbeats, waiting to hear any sounds in the aftermath, before poking his head around the side of the couch. 

He inches forward on his knees, tentative, when he sees no assailants left standing. The chandelier has crushed part of the main table, buckling the other half up at an angle. Cheap iron lies broken over the floor, strewn with the wire innards of fake lighting. Jack pushes himself up to half his full height, still keeping a small target as he creeps forward, scanning the debris. He sniffs, trying to pick out a familiar scent amidst the smell of blood and shattered furnishings. 

Something prickles at Jack’s nose out of the carnage, and his heart yearns with recognition—a faint drift of cologne, more expensive than anything these wannabes could afford, smothering up the smell of something sweet and delicate and achingly familiar.

He lowers his gun as he tries to zero in on the scent, to figure out whether it still belongs to someone _living_ and needing of rescue. 

A pile of debris in Jack’s periphery suddenly shifts, and before he can whip his gun back around and aim something hard and burning slams into his stomach and knocks him off his feet. Jack’s vision pops as his back and skull crack against the ground, stunning him and pain sizzles from the fresh wound in his side. The grip of the pistol knocks from his hand and as he scrabbles for it his suddenly clumsy fingers only knock it further away. He swears, throat thick and voice hoarse. 

His other hand presses into his stomach to asses the wound, and through bleary eyes he can see his palm come away red and glistening and _damn it_ , that’s bad. And what’s even worse is the sight of the surviving assassin pushing up from the ground where he previously lied unseen. He brushes dust and clinging rubble off his sleeves, before turning towards the downed CEO. 

Jack hisses and spits a little blood over his lips as he tries to pull himself up into a sitting position despite the screaming wound in his side. He coughs against the pain, eyes flicking from where his gun lies just out of reach to the assassin now walking towards him. 

Jack wheezes with effort as he tries willing his legs to move but they lock stiff out in front of him, like dead weight he wishes he could hack off. The assassin soon looms over him, face covered in marble dust but settled in grim triumphant. Blood stains his hair but he’s in far better shape than Jack, and his gun sits in his hand rather than knocked an impossible distance away. Jack glares up at him, trying to look intimidating even as he rests back on his elbows, blood seeping out from his wound onto the ruined floor. 

“Almost feel like I should thank you for taking out the old bastard…” The assassin tips the barrel of his rifle around in a circle. “Guess this place’ll be mine now, huh? Soon as I get rid of you and anyone coming to get you.”

_A disloyal hired gun, huh? Shocker_ , Jack thought grimly, trying to keep his strength from faltering. 

There’s still a chance he can make a break for it, surely. He’s Handsome-frikkin’- _Jack_ after all, but suddenly as he stares down the barrel of the assassin’s gun in a destroyed room quiet with death, a thought blooms to just let it all go. 

Even through endless violence and betrayal Jack had always pressed forward—in a way some around him might consider single-minded, but it’d brought him to dizzying heights of success so what did they know—but now he thinks of how his life will be if he _does_ manage to escape through some kind of miracle. He’ll be alive, sure. But without Rhys there to tease him and tempt him and light a fire under his ass, he wonders if it’ll at all be worthwhile. 

For the first time, the future feels hollow. 

The rifle fires. Jack doesn’t even hear it go off. He lets his eyes slip half-shut with the flash of the muzzle—ready to accept nothingness—when something brilliant and gold suddenly flashes across his vision.

“ _Jack!_ ”

The voice cuts across the CEO’s waning consciousness and snaps him back to attention. He jerks his head to the right just in time to see another figure sway up out of the carnage of the dinner, glinting chrome arm extended out from under a tattered sleeve. Jack’s heart leaps in his chest.

“K…Kiddo?”

Rhys’ palm and ECHOeye burns with the same golden energy that wavers out in a barrier in front of Jack, allowing the alpha to quickly put the pieces together 

It’s an Atlas shield, cast remotely in a wide swathe separating Jack’s injured body from his assailant. The bullet, intended for Jack’s skull, hovers harmless in midair, stopped dead in its tracks by the energy emanating from Rhys’ palm. Jack has never heard, never _imagined_ such a thing, but the omega wields it effortlessly—or as effortlessly as he can with wounds punched into his thigh and stomach. 

The assassin shouts in surprise at the sudden neutralizing of his killing blow, but before he can do anything Rhys shifts his outstretched hand towards him. 

The omega screams from the effort as he flings his arm out to the side, glowing energy of the shield briefly sucking back over the suspended bullet like water funneled down a small drain. Jack swears the bullet glows, threaded with shield’s energy and burning hot like a star a split second before it fires back where it came, splitting the bullet of the assassin’s gun before piercing him in the chest. He falls, dying cry cut off as his spine snaps back over the edge of the upturned table fragment.

Even from a few feet away, with his vision swimming, Jack can see Rhys trembling, even the usually steady silver fingers of his cybernetic arm shaking. It falls to his side after a moment of heavy breathing, the silence of the room settling in now that every assassin had been dispatched. There may be survivors among the bodies but no ones moves and Jack’s attention shrinks only to Rhys as the omega hobbles on over to him. 

“Kiddo…” Jack scrapes up his voice, watching Rhys struggle with a limp, boot dragging a trail of blood over the floor. 

Rhys doesn’t make it all the way, falling to his hands and knees with a tight gasp. His arms tremble, and Jack worries he’ll collapse right there, just out of Jack’s grasp. But Rhys’ fingers curl, digging into the floor beneath him, and with a series of labored exhales manages to pull himself the rest of the way to Jack’s side. 

“This…this hurts like _hell_ …” Rhys moans, pressing his flesh hand to his side as he lies down besides Jack, face now only a couple inches away. He looks too pale, skin ashen and plastered to his cheekbones. The little purplish crescents under his eyes that Jack mocked him for earlier look darker now, no longer lifted by the intelligent twinkle in his eyes. 

“Hey…hang in there…” Jack whispers, his own throat tightening with pain. The wound in his side twitches, staining more blood into his sweater. Damn thing would have to be cleaned. Probably even patched up again. 

Rhys, though, Rhys would probably wind up buying an entirely new outfit before he even considered patching it up. Maybe Jack should get him something nice. A “congrats on surviving your first assassination attempt” gift. 

Not that they were out of the woods yet. Jack could hear a commotion outside of the sealed room—hopefully medics responding to his distress call. 

“Jack…” Rhys gasps suddenly, the faintness of his voice twisting Jack’s stomach. “I…”

“ _Shh_.” The alpha has a bit of strength left, using it to cradle the side of Rhys’ face. Unusual intimacy between them. Jack figured Rhys didn’t mind, not when they were both bleeding out. “I’m here with you, pumpkin.”

He breathed his scent out through his nose, as heavily as he could muster, hoping it might drift through the stench of blood and sizzled flesh and comfort Rhys. Jack pushes fingers back through the injured omega’s hair, streaking the auburn locks even darker. 

“…Don’t let me go…” Rhys whispers, fresh blood seeping in a clean line from the edge of his lips, spilling towards the floor in a small puddle. Jack’s thumb strokes at the omega’s temple, watching his eyelids flutter as the banging sounds of themedics forcing their way into the dining room grow fainter. His faltering perception shrinks to Rhys and he keeps stroking his face, long after the omega’s eyelids fall closed, bloody lips parted around words Jack wishes he could hear. 

* * *

Jack furrows his brow when the first thing he smells upon waking is disinfectant.

Eyesight comes back to him slowly, slower than his sense of touch and scent. He tips his head blindly to the side, latching onto the hint of something sweet underneath the smell of sterility and old blood. His hand lifts like the air is too heavy around it, fingers brushing up against something warm and solid lying in the stiff sheets next to him. He presses in, feeling skin and slack muscle. 

When Jack finally manages to open his eyes it still takes a couple more seconds for his vision to restore, but when colors and shapes manage to cling together he can make out a pale, gentle face mere inches from his own, lips pink and parted around even breaths. 

Jack starts with recognition, his hand gripping Rhys’ flesh arm even tighter. Breath wheezes against his sore throat, and when he tries to sit up his side pinches with pain. He hisses, momentarily pulling his eyes away from Rhys to look down his body. From beneath the hem of papery, pale blue pajamas, he can see a swath of white bandages peaking out. 

_Right_. 

Jack lays his head back against the pillow beneath him, turning his eyes back to Rhys. It’s a strange mirror of how they’d lied, bleeding out against the shattered floor of some nobody’s mansion. 

There’s only inches of space between them. Jack thinks it’s weird and kind of presumptuous that the medics put them in the same bed, but then he realizes he’s lying atop the sheets and the tube of the IV in his arm is tugging tautly against where it’s fixed against his skin. He puts it together with a small chuckle.

“Just can’t…keep me ‘way from you kiddo…” Jack murmured, inching a little closer to Rhys and resting their foreheads together. The omega’s scent is muted but present, steady as the pulse thrumming under his skin as Jack lifts his hand and rests it against the side of Rhys’ throat. 

He feels exhaustion pulling back on him, but now that he can see that Rhys is safe and healing, Jack figures there’s not much harm in letting go and enjoying a rare, intimate moment with his rival. 


End file.
